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919 










An 
Amfriran 

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By LOUISE A, WALLACE 




Class 

Book L 

Copyright ]^^. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSITS 




RUTH 

(WHOSE TRAVELS ARE HEREIN RECORDED.) 



AN AMERICAN CHILD 
IN EUROPE ^ ^ ^ ^ 



-rviA^ , LOUISE aTwallace 



THE IMPRESSIONS OF A LITTLE 

GIRL, DURING A YEAR'S 

TRAVEL IN THE 

OLD WORLD 

WITH EIGHT HALF-TONE ILLUSTRATIONS 







Copyright 1914. 



27 i9i4 



PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 



©C1.AB87739 



TO 

''TANTE" 



THE CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER . PAGE 

I. On Board Ship 9 

Games and Contests. Two Visits to the Ship Barber. 

II. London and Edinborough 17 

The Landing. Sight-seeing in London. 
Edinborough in Gala Dress. Auld Ayr. 

III. In Germany 27 

On the Rhine, Cologne. Berlin. 

IV. Old Dresden 38 

The Sistine Madonna. The Jahr-markt. 
Fairy Tales in Opera. 

V. Christmas in Germany 49 

A German Christmas-tree. 
Some Winter Sports. 

VI. Nuremberg and Munich 58 

Nuremberg Castle and the Apostle Clock. 
Feeding the Doves in Munich. 
Through the Bavarian Alps Into Verona. 

VII. Florence 70 

The City of Flowers. Ponte Vecchio. 
The Carnival. 

VIII. Rome 85 

The Coliseum. Borghese Gardens. 
On the Spanish Steps. 

IX. Holy Week in Rome 93 

In St. Peter's. Catacombs of San Sebastian. 
A Birthday Party in Rome. 

X. Naples and Capri 102 

A Trip to Pompeii. 

The Beautiful Isle of Capri. 



THE ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Ruth (whose travels are herein recorded) . . Frontispiece \^ 

Facing page 
On Deck. (The ship-barber's canary.) 15 ^ 

BuRN'S Cottage. (Ayr, Scotland.) 26 ^ 

Happy Hours in a German Garden. (Berlin.) . . . 33 v^ 

The Sistine Madonna By Raphael 40 v/ 

(In the Dresden Gallery.) 

Afternoon Tea in an Italian Garden. (Florence.) . 83 ^ 

Coliseum at Rome 87 V 

On the Steps at Capri 110 ^ 



AN AMERICAN CHILD IN EUROPE 



Chapter One 



ON BOARD SHIP 

GAMES AND CONTESTS. TWO VISITS TO 
THE SHIP BARBER. 

WHEN I was a little girl of six, father 
and mother decided to take my brother 
and me, and spend one year in Europe visiting 
some of the principal cities and traveling from 
place to place, just as the ''spirit moved us," as 
father said. Mother talked with my teacher 
about taking school-books along, but she said 
we would get more out of the trip by keeping 
our eyes open than by all the school-books in 
the world. 

Other people said, "What a shame to take 
those children out of school for a whole year; 
they are too young to get anything out of such 
a trip." But we really did learn a lot, — brother 



10 On Board Ship 



and I, — and now I am ever so much older, and 
with brother's help and mother's diary to refer 
to (about dates and things) I am writing down 
all I can remember about our travels. 

Father had gone over to Carlsbad two 
months earlier and had agreed to meet us in 
London so there were four of us who left our 
home in America together, mother, my brother 
Edwin and I and my aunt Nellie, who went 
over with us to study German. This was in 
June and the ocean trip was a delightful one, 
long, lazy days, almost all of them pleasant. I 
was what people called **a good sailor" and did 
not mind even the times it was rough and the 
ship tossed about. Brother and I had break- 
fast and luncheon with mother and auntie, but 
at night we had a light supper, just right for 
children, at half-past five, and soon after that 
we went to bed. Then mother and auntie 
would go to their dinner, because the "grown- 



Oil Board Ship 1 1 



ups'' ate a seven o'clock. I remember one night 
after they had left us in the state-room to go 
to their dinner, we decided to put on life pre- 
servers. We had a hard time getting them 
down from the rack on the ceiling from our 
perch in the upper berth, but we finally man- 
aged to get them loose and strapped them 
around each other. We had a fine frolic for 
a while, but bye and bye we got very sleepy 
and decided to take off the clumsy things 
and settle down for the night. Alas! We 
could not get them off. Edwin struggled 
with mine and I tugged at his, and as we 
could not lie down with them on, we were 
obliged to just sit patiently and wait until 
mother came. She had supposed we were 
asleep hours ago, and had come to the cabin 
to give us a little motherly tucking in. Our 
eyelids were drooping and our spirits were 
anything but gay as we sat there like graven 



12 On Board Ship 

images in the top berth, but mother said 
afterward we were a very funny sight. 

We used to play shuffle-board sometimes 
and there were other interesting things to 
do; but the biggest day of all was the day of 
the contests when there were races, and the 
tug-of-war, and high jumping and all sorts 
of games, and prizes were given for the win- 
ners. My brother won in some of the con- 
tests and I was very proud, but the only one 
I entered was the jam contest, which sounds 
interesting but is not so very, especially 
when one has had a shampoo just the day 
before by the barber on the ship who was 
not very gentle, because he was hurrying to 
get through to shave some men. That is a 
long sentence, but it really belongs all to- 
gether. The connection between the sham- 
poo by the ship's barber and the jam will be 
discovered later. Whoever invented the jam 



On Board Ship 13 



contest must have been either very bald or 
had a shaven head and couldn't possibly 
imagine w^hat it would do to a little girl with 
a "Dutch cut." 

A long cord was stretched across the deck 
away up above the heads of even the tallest 
of the children. From this were hung six 
cords with a bun covered with jam on the 
end of each, just about on a level with our 
heads. Then our hands were tied behind us, 
we were given a signal and all six children 
began to nibble at the swinging, jam-cov- 
ered buns. No one could get a good hold 
on them wnth his teeth, but one boy managed 
to pull his off the string and got down on the 
floor and ate like a dog, because his hands 
were fastened behind him. It was very 
smeary and sticky with that bun bobbing 
and swinging against my face and hair, and 
I did not get even one good bite. I was 



14 On Board Ship 

ashamed, too, with everybody leaning over 
the rail of the hurricane deck and laughing 
at us, and I did wish I could get my hands 
loose and run away and hide. 

The boy who ate like a dog got the first 
prize for eating the quickest, but I didn't 
think it was a very great honor. My brother 
got the second prize, but I was glad he 
wasn't the dog-one. And I was awarded a 
prize for not getting even one bite out of my 
bun. It was a pretty black silk ribbon for 
my hat with the name of the steamer woven 
in gold letters. But that did not make up 
for all I had to suffer, for my hair was all a 
sticky mass, and my pretty blue hair ribbon 
was ruined, and mother had to take me 
straight to the barber again and pay him an- 
other two shillings for a shampoo, just like 
the day before. Only it was more dreadful, 
for my hair was in a worse tangle and he 
pulled it cruelly. 



On Board Ship 15 



He had a very pretty canary bird though, 
which he had taught to do tricks, and he 
would sometimes let us have the cage out on 
deck in the sunlight, where we could play 
with him, and give him bits of sugar. So he 
was quite a kind barber, after all. 

What I liked best of all was to be wrapped 
up in a steamer rug and sit on a chair next 
to mother, or on her knee, and have her read 
to me. Then the deck steward would come 
around with his big tray of hot bouillon — if 
it was forenoon — or tea in the afternoon, and 
salty crackers (or ''biscuits" as the steward 
called them because he was English) and 
thin bread and butter sandwiches, and we 
were always ready for whatever he had. We 
children were almost always hungry on 
board ship, and mother says everyone is, un- 
less they suffer from seasickness, and then 
they are so much the other way that they 



16 On Board Ship 

can't even bear to hear anyone speak of 
food. But we were not that way at all, and 
there were no unpleasant happenings to mar 
the memory of my first ocean voyage. 



Chapter Two. 



LONDON AND EDINBOROUGH. 

THE LANDING. SIGHT-SEEING IN LONDON. 

EDINBOROUGH IN GALA DRESS. 

AULD AYR. 

FINALLY the day came to land and we 
were all very much excited. Long be- 
fore the big steamer got into the slip we 
could see father on the dock to meet us, with 
a high silk hat, and a long frock coat and 
looking very English, and not at all like our 
dear Scotch-American father, who had left 
us two months before. Edwin leaned over 
the rail to get a better look at him and in the 
excitement his hat dropped off into the ocean, 
and, of course, that was the last of that. 

It was a perfectly new hat, too, bought 
especially for the trip. Afterward in Lon- 
don father had a dreadful time trying to get 
him a hat like little American boys wear. 



18 London and Edinborough 

The salesmen all wanted to sell him what 
they call a ''bowler/' like our derby. Imagine 
my little eight-year-old brother wearing a 
derby hat ! 

Well, we had some wonderful days in 
London, but I am afraid I remember more 
about the Zoo, and Madame Tussard's Wax 
Works, than I do about the British Museum, 
or the Tower, or Westminster Abbey — for 
we went to all of those places. I do remem- 
ber going to St. Paul's on Sunday, and that 
I was cold in there, and we all went to Hyde 
Park afterward and sat in chairs and watched 
the Sunday parade of people in their very 
best clothes walking back and forth. 

It was very warm in London at this time, 
and after we had been there two weeks we 
were glad to take the train for Edinborough, 
Scotland. Everything was excitement there, 
for the King and Queen, who had just been 



London and Edinborough 19 

crowned, were soon to visit Scotland and 
everybody wanted their homes and them- 
selves to look clean and shining, and there 
were hundreds of flags, and everything 
looked very gay, like our fourth of July at 
home. 

We had been there two days when they 
came. We had been out to Holyrood Castle 
and were just coming back through the 
crowds of people that filled the streets, when 
we saw their Majesties, King George and 
Queen Mary, driving from the station. The 
King looked very little when he stood up in 
the carriage and bowed to the people, and I 
thought the Queen's hat was very funny, so 
many feathers, but mother said it was a rare 
treat for children like us to be able to see the 
King and Queen of the British Isles without 
any effort whatever, so I looked as hard as I 
could till they had gone by. 



20 London and Edinborough 

Every da}^ there was something planned 
for their entertainment. One day there was 
a wonderful exhibition by the Boy Scouts — 
four thousand of them — and when the King 
and Queen appeared, the boys put their hats 
on their staffs and waved them high in the 
air. It was a wonderful sight. 

Then there were aeroplane flights, and ex- 
hibition drills by the different regiments : the 
Scottish Grays, and the Black Watch, and 
the King's Guard, and the Fusiliers, and 
ever so many others ; and I don't see how the 
King and Queen could help but be pleased 
with all the beautiful things that were done 
for their entertainment, and I should think 
they surely would have been proud of the 
people they ruled over and the beautiful 
country all around them, with its hills, and 
moors, and purple heather, which belongs 
to their kingdom. 



London and Edinborough 21 

The place where we stayed in Edinborough 
was a very interesting one. It was a private 
house in the famous old George Square, only 
a few doors from the house occupied by Sir 
Walter Scott for so many years. There were 
two very nice English children there whose 
parents were in India, the father being a 
colonel in the army. We four had jolly 
times together, and one afternoon we at- 
tended a real, English garden party at the 
home of one of their friends. Every day we 
rehearsed for a play we had planned to give 
to the members of the household, and I re- 
member we had programs, and a stage, and 
curtains, and a royal box, and everything 
we could think of to make it like a real thea- 
tre. It was a great deal of trouble, but ever 
so much fun. 

The owner and head of the household was 
Miss B (mother says I must not put 



22 London and Edinborough 

down any real names), an English lady, who 
had once been wealthy but who had lost her 
money and was obhged to take a few "pay- 
ing guests" each summer to provide an in- 
come. Her grown-up nephew, an orphan, 
made his home with her and at dinner she 
would preside at one end of the long table 
and the nephew at the other, with a platter of 
meat in front of each. The meals were very 
dainty, but the portions were small and 
father did not really get enough to eat. 

Miss B — — would say, for instance, '*Now 
today we have a leg of mutton and a meat 
pie, which will you have?'' 

We were supposed to be polite and say, 
"Til take mutton, please," or, 'Til have a 
little of the meat pie, please," and all of us 
did but father, and when it would come his 
turn he'd say, "I'll take both," which always 

got Miss B quite excited, for I think she 

had never had anyone say that before. 



London and Edinhorough 23 

One day we had all planned to go to Holy- 
rood Castle for the second time. This is the 
old castle where Mary Queen of Scots lived 
for so long and who was afterward beheaded 
in London, and whose son was James the 
First, who ruled over England. 

Well, I had a dreadful toothache that day 
and mother and I, instead of going with the 
others to Holyrood Castle, went to quite a 
different place — the dentist's, expecting to 
get the aching tooth filled, for it was one 
that should have lasted for several years. 
Instead of that he put a horrid, smelly thing 
over my face and made me draw long breaths 
and I went to sleep, and when I woke up the 
tooth was gone. But I didn't wake up very 
well and my mother took me in her arms and 
ran with me all the way home and held me 
all that afternoon in her room which we 
called the ''Glory Room," because the sun- 



24 London and Edinborough 

shine flooded in there in such a blaze of glory 
for hours every day. 

The dentists over there are not called 
^'Doctor So and So," just plain ''Mr.", which 
seemed very odd to us. 

We were in Edinborough two weeks, but 
the first of August we started for Ayr, where 
the poet Robert Burns was born; and we 
went through the big, noisy city of Glasgow. 
I was glad we did not have to stop there very 
long. 

We changed trains there and mother 
thought it would be nice to buy a little 
Scotch short-bread to eat on the train. 
There was a stand at the station where such 
things were sold and she said to the girl be- 
hind the counter: 

''I would like sixpence worth of sweet- 
bread, please." 

She meant to say ''short-bread," of course. 



London and Edinboroiigh 25 

and as the poor girl had never heard of 
sweet-breads, she didn't know what mother 
was talking about. She kept asking what 
mother wanted and mother kept repeating 
"sweet-breads" until finally she pointed to 
some short-bread and the girl said, "Oh, it 
is short-bread you wish, madame." 

Then mother apologized and we all 
laughed about it after we got on the train, 
that she had been asking for meat when she 
wanted cake. 

Ayr is a beautiful city and father said that 
the poet Burns, in his poem "Tam o' Shan- 
ter," wrote of it : 

"Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses. 
For honest men, and bonnie lassies." 

We had a fine place right on the seashore 
where we played in the sands from morning 
until night, and built castles, and dug 
trenches, and made forts and entrenchments, 



26 London and Edinborot^gh 

and played sand fairies and rode little don- 
keys up and down the beach and had such 
happy times ! 

Of course, we went all through the cottage 
where Robert Burns was born and saw the 
few old keepsakes. Mother took our pictures 
on the Brig o' Doon and we visited Auld 
Alloway Kirk where Tarn o' Shanter saw 
the witches and goblins dance on the night 
of his wild ride home from Ayr, in that same 
poem. 



Chapter Three. 



IN GERMANY. 

ON THE RHINE, COLOGNE. BERLIN. 

WHEN we left Ayr we went back to 
Edinborough, this time going to a 
hotel in the town overlooking the beautiful 
Princess Gardens, where we stayed for two 
or three days. We then returned to London 
and after a few days there left on August 
twelfth at eight o'clock in the evening by 
train for Harwich, then took a steamer for 
Hook of Holland, arriving at four o'clock 
the following morning. 

From then until three that afternoon was 
just a dizzy whirl of trains, for we had to 
hurry and get dressed and take a train at five 
o'clock that morning for Cologne. The heat 
was terrible, but brother and I played that 
the green plush upholstery on the seats was 



28 In Germany 



beautiful, cool, green grass and that made 
us forget how hot it really was. 

We were to be in Cologne a few weeks 
later, so at this time we stopped only long 
enough to change trains and finally reached 
Neuenahr, a little German town not far from 
the Rhine, where the famous appollinaris 
water comes from, gushing from the earth 
in wonderful, never-ceasing streams. We 
went all through the big plant where it is 
bottled, and sealed, and shipped all over the 
world. 

At Neuenahr we were very happy for a 
month. Father drank the water at the 
springs in the village all the time we were 
there and sometimes I tried to drink it, too, 
but the taste was very bad and I did not like 
it. Father had to pay what is called a "kur- 
tax" to the city for each one of us, whether 
we drank the water or not, for people came 



In Germany 29 



from all over the world for the "cure" like 
at Carlsbad or any of the big cure towns. 

The mountains were all around us, for 
places like that are usually in the valleys or 
foot-hills, and it was very warm. The band 
played in the park every afternoon and even- 
ing, and we used to hear it often after we 
had gone to bed. There were beautiful old 
gardens back of the hotel where we stayed, 
and we used to play there by the hour. 
Mother has a picture of brother and me play- 
ing tea party at one of the little tables, and 
another one of father and me playing check- 
ers under the trees. 

My dollies were a great comfort to me 
that summer. I had one named Gretchen, 
and later on she had a brother named Han- 
sel, who seemed quite at home in that Ger- 
man garden. My Auntie was studying 
German every day and she was often in the 



30 In Germany 



garden with her books after her lesson, at a 
little table in a shady nook. We heard Ger- 
man spoken all the time and Edwin and I 
began saying "Tante" instead of Auntie, and 
"Mutter" for Mother. 

The small daughter of the proprietor had 
a birthday while we were there, and many of 
her little friends were invited for the after- 
noon. There were delicious things to eat, and 
we all played German games in the garden 
under the trees and had a delightful time, 
only we had dreadful stomach aches that 
night from too much pfefferkuchen. 

On the ninth of September, according to 
mother's diary, we left for Cologne, where 
we stayed only long enough to see the 
beautiful cathedral, and it looked just like 
all the pictures I had seen of it at home. 
But what I remember the best about Cologne 
is the hotel where we stayed, called the 



In Germany 31 



''Dome Hotel." In one of the rooms was 
what we called a stage, which was really 
only a wide step in one alcove like a bay 
window. This had curtains across that 
would draw and Edwin and I had a fine time 
playing ''theatre" there. 

Mother and I went to one of the small 
shops in Cologne to get a picture of the 
Cathedral to send away. She wanted one in 
sepia, I think she called it, but could not 
make the man understand that it was a 
brown print she wanted, and looked around 
for something brown to show him, and all 
at once I thought of something, and sur- 
prised mother very much when I put my 
foot with it's short, brown stocking and 
brown sandal on the counter. I was only 
six and the counter was low, but mother said 
I should not do that again. The man under- 
stood and brought out the brown print, 



32 In Germany 



though I think he smiled a little when he 
turned to get it. 

We went to Berlin from Cologne, travel- 
ing from ten o'clock in the morning until 
seven at night, and went to a pension that 
someone had told us was very nice, and 
where we would hear nothing but German 
spoken, and that pleased Tante Nellie, for it 
was exactly what she wanted. But it was 
such a funny place we spent but one night 
there. 

The rooms were large and had very high 
ceilings, but were so filled with great pieces 
of upholstered furniture that they seemed 
stuffy and small. One could scarcely move 
about in between those huge chairs, and 
divans, and things ; and Edwin and I, when 
we were ready for bed, played we were 
mountain goats and stepped from the back 
of one chair to another all around the room, 




HAIM'V HOURS IX A CERMAX CARDEX. (BERTJN.) 



In Germany 33 



pretending we were leaping from crag to 
crag. Tante heard enough German during 
our first meal to last her for a long time, and 
even she was willing to go the next morning, 
although that was not the reason, of course. 

Father heard of a place — when he called 
at the American Express Company for mail 
—on Bellevue Strasse, almost in the heart of 
Berlin. It had once been a palace and had 
the most wonderful grounds, and gardens 
filled with trees, and vines, and pieces of 
statuary, and old marble benches, and trel- 
lises, and flowers, and everything just like 
fairyland. 

There was a little pond in the garden, too, 
with a fountain, and a gardener who worked 
all the time to keep things nice; but not too 
nice, because the German baron who owned 
the place wished to have it look like just what 
it was — a very old but very beautiful private 
estate. 



34 In Germany 



But I almost forget to tell about the in- 
side, which, after all, is the most important 
part. An American lady had leased this 
place for a term of years and could take a 
few people to live there. It was a very 
homey, beautiful place, and we were so glad 
when we found we could have a suite of four 
rooms overlooking the old garden, and we 
had our trunks brought and settled right 
down for a month with one of the kindest, 
dearest ladies we have ever known. 

The servants were all German as well as 
some of the guests, and auntie had a chance 
to hear and speak it after all. The very next 
day after we got there was her birthday and 
we had lovely flowers on the table, and Ed- 
win and I gave her a book of Rhine views, 
and we had a beautiful German birthday 
cake, and everything was very gay and fes- 
tive at dinner that night. 



In Germany 35 



In the afternoon we had all gone in a sight- 
seeing car, which we children loved to do, 
and for two hours had motored around the 
city. The trip was called ''Seeing BerHn," 
and we surely did see it. We lived not far 
from the beautiful five-hundred-acre Tier 
Garten, the largest public park of Berlin, 
and we often went there, Edwin and I, for 
we could now speak enough German to be 
able to ask a policeman our way home if we 
got lost, though some of them spoke Eng- 
lish. They were very grand looking crea- 
tures, and wore shining spiked helmets, and 
those who could speak English had the Eng- 
lish flag and the Stars and Stripes embroid- 
ered on the sleeves of their blue uniforms. 

We began having an hour or two of les- 
sons these days, as mother thought the 
discipline would be good for us and we talked 
German with Tante and had some arithmetic 



36 In Germany 



—which I don't Hke at all — and mother made 
us each write a letter to her every day, tell- 
ing her all we had seen and describing things 
in our own way, and then she would correct 
our mistakes and show us our letters, and I 
think she is saving them to this day. We 
got so we could write quite nice letters. 

Lots of musical people came to the house, 
for the kind lady had a son who played beau- 
tifully on the 'cello and when he played, with 
a young lady who played on the piano, it 
was Hke the voice of someone singing, it was 
so sweet and human. 

I remember one afternoon we were all in 
the pleasant drawing room listening to the 
music. There was a small balcony with long 
French windows opening from this room 
and I was sitting out there by myself, when 
one of the gentlemen of the company stepped 
out there to smoke. 



In Germany 37 



When he saw me he said: "Pardon me, 
do you mind if I smoke?" And he meant it, 
too, and I was only six, but I shall remember 
that all my life. When I think of Berlin I 
always think of that balcony and the polite 
gentleman. 

We spent one whole afternoon at the Zoo, 
which is one of the finest in the world, 
though it is not nearly so large as the one in 
London. Another afternoon father hired a 
big motor car with a chauffeur, and we drove 
out to Potsdam to see the Royal Palace, the 
home of the Kaiser, and all the beautiful 
buildings and grounds connected with it. 

The shops in Berlin are wonderful, espe- 
cially the toy shops, where we liked to roam 
around for hours just looking. I will tell 
more about the German toys a little later on. 



Chapter Four. 



OLD DRESDEN. 

THE SISTINE MADONNA. THE JAHR-MARKT. 
FAIRY TALES IN OPERA. 



OUR month in Berlin passed very quick- 
ly. Father left us there before the 
month was over and v^ent to Carlsbad, and 
we went a few days later to dear old Dres- 
den. This is where we really settled down 
for a long stay, and I am sure mother was 
glad because she had all our packing to do, 
and in each place we visited there would be 
added a little more. Poor mutter! About 
two days before we left a place she must 
begin packing. Edwin got toy soldiers from 
every country we visited, and he had a won- 
derful collection at the end of the year. 

Our first day in Dresden was a very un- 
pleasant one. The rain came down in tor- 



Old Dresden 39 



rents and we none of us were able to go out 
of doors all day. I was a little homesick, 
because I knew mother was, and I usually 
feel the way she does about things. The 
second day was just about the same, but 
after that the skies got bright and every- 
thing was fresh and beautiful. 

We took long street car rides for ten 
pfennigs (two and one-half cents) and we 
saw a great deal of the city in that way. The 
city is divided in two parts by the River 
Elbe, Altstadt and Neustadt, or Old Village 
and New Village, joined by four immense 
bridges. We lived in the Altstadt, and on 
this side of the river are the Royal Palace, — 
where Hves the king of Saxony, — and the 
famous Green Vault, where the wonderful 
crown jewels and other rare treasures are 
kept. 



40 Old Dresden 



Near by are the Royal Art Galleries, and 
one of the first things we did in Dresden was 
to go there, for mother wished me to see and 
remember the beautiful painting by Raphael, 
of the Sistine Madonna. It is in a room all 
by itself, though we walked through gallery 
after gallery to get to it, but when you get 
there it is like Heaven, it is so restful and 
beautiful. There is a long divan opposite the 
painting and one may sit there a minute or 
an hour and gaze at the picture; and it is 
always quiet there — some way no one feels 
like talking. 

Father's birthday was in October, soon 
after we reached Dresden, and since he was 
alone in Carlsbad, mother and Edwin de- 
cided to go over and spend a day or two with 
him. Tante and I missed them, but we did 
lots of interesting things together while they 
were gone, and I had almost as much to tell 




THE SISTTNE MADONNA. 
(In the DvesrLeu Ga.llery.> 



Old Dresden 41 



my brother about Saxony when he came 
back, as he had to tell me about Austria. 

A little boy who lived where we did took 
me to the American Sunday School and in- 
troduced me to the superintendent. He 
patted my head and said in a real pleasant 
voice: "Where are you from, my dear?" I 
said: 'Trom America." 

''Yes, I know that," said he, "but from 
what State?" 

I knew the answer to that, too, and said 
very quickly: "The United States." 

He smiled a little and did not ask any 
more questions. 

Brother and I went every Sunday and saw 
many little American children who, like our- 
selves, were spending a few weeks, or 
months, or years, in old Dresden. 

Finally it was decided to place me in a 
small private school there, where there wer^ 



42 Old Dresden 



just little German children, excepting one 
other little American girl whose name was 
"Patty." It was only a kindergarten, while 
at home I had been promoted to the second 
grade, but I learned much German and 
learned also to do beautiful weaving and was 
able to make pretty Christmas gifts for each 
one of the family. Of course, the kindly 
Fraulein helped me, but I did the most of it 
always. I carried a lunch to school, like all 
the other children, to eat at recess time, and 
I had a regular German lunch basket of 
woven straw hung from my shoulder by a 
strap. 

At about this time father and mother 
went over to Vienna, in Austria, for a few 
days to meet some friends from home, and 
they were all going together to Buda-Pest. 
By this time we all felt almost like native 
Saxons, and could go all around everywhere. 



Old Dresden 43 



We had made many friends, and I was in 
school every morning, and the weather was 
wonderful, and I wore short socks until 
January. At first the German children 
thought I was English, because English chil- 
dren wear the half-hose all winter, and they 
did not like me very well, but when they 
found I was just plain American, they liked 
me better. The Germans did not care for 
the English, even then, and now they care 
less, as we know. 

Among the most interesting places we 
saw in Dresden were the big china factories, 
where the celebrated Dresden china is manu- 
factured. When we were taken all through — 
and saw the way the beautiful china is made, 
from the very beginning to the very end — we 
could understand better, why the prices are 
so high. There is always someone who 
speaks good English in places like that,— for 



44 Old Dresden 



many of their best customers are Americans. 
The man who went through the factory with 
us showed father his book of orders, in which 
he proudly pointed out the names of promi- 
nent and wealthy Americans signed to orders 
amounting to hundreds and hundreds of dol- 
lars,— and showed us many samples of the 
dishes they had purchased, — many of them 
bearing their monograms. 

During December the operas, especially 
for the children, were given, beginning at 
five in the afternoon and ending at seven. 
We went to hear "Hansel and Gretel," and 
Edwin and I sat in the very front row. It 
was all in German and the music was beau- 
tiful, and it was all so real that when Hansel 
thrust the old witch into the oven after she 
had been so cruel to them, I just stood up 
and clapped my hands and said: "Goody — 
goody ! Don't let her out !" 



Old Dresden 45 



At another time we saw ''Snow White" — 
which is the one where the wicked queen 
looks in her mirror and says : 

"Spieglein, Spieglein, on der Wand, 
Wer ist die Schonste im ganzen Land?'* 

("Glass, glass, that hangs on the wall. 
Who in this world is the fairest of all?'') 

And the glass tells her that little Snow 
White who lives in the glen is the fairest of 
all. Then the Queen is so angry she tries 
to poison little Snow White, but she does not 
succeed, and all the whole wonderful story 
is acted out in singing, in German, and of 
course it all ends well, and they all live hap- 
pily ever after. 

Then there were others like "Red Riding 
Hood," and "Little Golden Locks," and it 
was like reading the fairy tales over and over 
again, only far more beautiful. I think 
Tante and Mutter enjoyed these afternoons 



46 Old Dresden 



as much as brother and I did. I forgot to 
say that father had gone back to America on 
business soon after his return from Vienna, 
and we four were alone in Dresden. 

About a week before Christmas the ''J^^r- 
markt" began. "J^hr" means year, and this 
was the yearly or annual market. A large 
open space down in the heart of the city was 
filled with tents and temporary stands cov- 
ered with canvas ; and peasants from far and 
near brought there to sell everything you 
can think of, from a horse to a penny doll. 

We had been promised a small Christmas 
tree especially for us children and our dolls, 
and we bought ever so many things at the 
jahr-markt for it. I got the most wonderful 
doll-house furniture and cunning little dolls 
and doll carriages, and lots of things, and 
we had a fine time all that week, going 
around to the many stalls, spending a few 
pfennigs here and there. 



Old Dresden 47 



Most of the toys were made by hand by 
the German peasants and in almost every 
home some special toy is made. For in- 
stance, one family, children and all, make 
Noah's arks, and nothing but that. Another 
makes toy tables and another dolls' chairs. 
They think the longer they work at one kind 
of toy, the faster they can make it, and the 
more money they can earn, so it seems fool- 
ish to them to spend their time trying to 
learn different things. 

One afternoon brother begged to be al- 
lowed to go to the jahr-markt all alone to 
buy little Christmas gifts for us all, and 
though Dresden is a very large city of six 
hundred thousand people, and Edwin was 
only eight years old, it seemed so much safer 
to do some things there, than in any Ameri- 
can city of the same size, mother said, and 
she allowed him to go. I remember he walked 



48 Old Dresden 



both ways and was gone a long time and came 
back rather cold and tired, but laden with pack- 
ages of all sizes, and very, very happy. In 
all he had spent about thirty-three cents, but 
had heaps of presents, which he hid away 
very carefully until Christmas. 

The most disappointing part of all was 
that father could not be with us for the holi- 
day season, and for a long time before 
Christmas I prayed every night that he 
would surprise us by coming Christmas eve, 
but he could not come, and it wasn't quite 
so happy a Christmas as the ones when he 
is with us. 



Chapter Five. 



CHRISTMAS IN GERMANY. 

A GERMAN CHRISTMAS-TREE. 
SOME WINTER SPORTS. 

WE were in a pension something like the 
one in Berlin, and this, too, was con- 
ducted by a very lovely American lady. She 
wanted everybody to feel very happy always, 
but especially during the Christmas season, 
and to forget that they were not in their 
own homes. 

There was much secrecy about the Christ- 
mas tree, and none of us children saw it until 
Christmas eve when the doors of the draw- 
ing room were opened, and there stood the 
beautiful thing in all its glory, and towering 
up to the ceiHng. Around the base of the 
tree were five trays laden with gifts for the 
servants; gold pieces and books and gloves 



50 Christmas in Germany 



and stollen, each tray bearing the name of 
the girl for whom it was intended. Before 
any of the rest of us got our presents the 
five pretty German maids came in and sang 
Christmas carols with very sweet voices, 
then they were given their trays and after 
wishing every one Frohliche Weihnachten! 
(Merry Christmas), went away to their own 
Christmas tree to have a celebration of their 
own. After that, everyone exchanged gifts, 
and sang, and had a very jolly time. 

One of the most beautiful things on the 
tree was a lovely little French dolly for me 
from the dear and beautiful lady whose 
home we were in that winter. She was 
dressed exquisitely from head to foot and 
the dear lady had made all the beautiful 
clothes herself, and even I, as little as I was, 
knew that it meant many, many hours of 
work. I named the dolly ''Harriet,'' because 



Christmas in Germany 51 

that was the name of the lady who gave her 
to me. I have loved her and played with her 
ever since, but she is the same dainty little 
Harriet, and all her tiny clothes are as 
dainty as ever. I am sure if the lady could 
see her now, she would know how much I 
have prized that Christmas gift. 

The Germans have so many beautiful 
things for trimming Christmas trees, things 
that never seem to get to our country, and I 
shall always remember that wonderful 
Christbaum in Dresden. That night long 
after I was sound asleep in my bed, auntie 
and some of the others went down in the 
city to hear the Christmas carols sung from 
one of the old church steeples at midnight — 
an old, old German custom. 

On Christmas morning everybody rushed 
about to each other's rooms to say Merry 
Christmas, but brother and I were very busy 



52 Christmas in Germany 

with our stockings, which were full and run- 
ning over. I was the only little girl in the 
house, and mother said she only hoped I 
wouldn't be totally spoiled because every- 
body was so good to me. 

When we entered the dining room for our 
Christmas dinner, the first thing we noticed 
was a small Christmas tree filled with fa- 
vors, on the large round table. The base of 
this tree was banked up to look like green 
moss, but it was really a round music box 
and when we were all seated, someone 
touched a spring and the tree began to go 
slowly around, and the music played '^Stille 
Nacht, Heilige Nacht," and other pretty Ger- 
man carols, not loud, but just in a soft, tink- 
Hng way that sounded like birds. Then at 
our places were Christmas greetings on the 
covers of beautiful little booklets, and, on the 
inside of these, much to everybody's surprise, 



Christmas in Germany S3 

were printed verses in rhyme about all the 
people in that dining room. 

The Christmas dinner was a wonderful 
combination of the choicest American dishes 
and the choicest German dishes, and I re- 
member hearing the grown-ups call it a 
"masterpiece," and I knew that meant some- 
thing very nice. 

On New Year's Day there was a little 
snow for the first time that winter. A 
few days later was Edwin's birthday, and 
when he awoke in the morning he found by 
his bed the little house of ''Hansel and Gre- 
tel," all made of chocolate, with Hansel and 
Gretei standing by the door. What a temp- 
tation that was! But he kept it for several 
days and played with it with his soldiers, 
but finally he bit off the chimney and then 
he ate Gretel's head and arms and then he 
let me eat Hansel and at last we began nib- 



54 Christmas in Germany 

bling on the roof, and before we knew it we 
had eaten the whole house. He had lots of 
presents for a boy whose birthday comes so 
soon after Christmas, and mother took him 
down town and had his picture taken, and 
he selected a box of beautiful Turkish sol- 
diers to go with his collection. That after- 
noon he and another little American boy 
the same age, whose birthday was a few 
days earHer, had a few children in for ice 
cream and hot chocolate and a beautiful 
birthday cake. 

The sixth of January is a holiday in Sax- 
ony, being 'Twelfth Night," and after that, 
all the wreaths of holly and mistletoe and 
the Christmas trees and pine cones dis- 
appear. 

On the seventh of January mother's diary 
says: 'Tut long stockings on Ruth, accom- 
panied by loud protestations from her." I 



Christmas in Germany 55 

think she must mean by that that I cried, 
for I did, very hard, and a very dapper old 
gentleman v^ho was very fond of me and 
who called me the ''prima donna" because I 
was always singing, heard my wails and 
came hurrying as fast as his rheumatic legs 
would carry him through the hall. We 
could hear his cane tapping and clicking 
along the floor and finally he rapped at moth- 
er's door, demanding to know why she was 
''punishing that child — as good a child as 
ever lived," he said, and he was "quite sure 
the baby did not deserve any such punish- 
ment as would make her cry like that." 
When mother could get a word in edgewise, 
she told him she was only changing my 
short socks for long stockings and that I 
rebelled against the change. He looked a 
little taken back and muttering something 
about being mistaken he turned away to go 



56 Christmas in Germany 

to his room, his cane tap-tapping down the 
hallway. 

It began to be winter in earnest now that 
it had a good start, and the ground was cov- 
ered with snow and the ice was firm and 
smooth. Brother and I went often to the 
Sports-plats near our house, a big pond of ice 
where you could rent a sled like a chair and 
with runners that curled up in front and 
back Hke a Russian sleigh, and a handle in 
the back like a baby carriage. Brother 
would skate behind and push me and it was 
great fun. Tante often came here to skate, 
too, and we had man}^ a jolly hour in the 
fine, frosty air. 

Another fine place to skate was the Carola 
See, in the Grosser Garten, a beautiful park 
connected with the Dresden Zoo. It was 
here the King of Saxony came with his chil- 
dren, the little princes and princesses, to 
skate, and we often saw them. 



Christmas in Germany 57 

I was so disappointed that the King was 
not wearing his beautiful jeweled crown, 
which we had seen among the court jewels in 
the Green Vault, and when I said so to my 
brother, he said how did I suppose the King 
could cut all those fine "figure eights" with a 
crown on, and how would I like to try to 
skate with a crown on, anyway? So I did 
not ask any more questions about it, but 
decided again, just as I had when we saw 
King George and Queen Mary in Edinbor- 
ough, that Kings and Queens look very much 
like un-royal people after all. 

There were wonderful long hills for coast- 
ing, too, and auntie and brother often went, 
but I didn't like that so well, it was such a 
wild dash down and such a long walk up. 

The days went by very quickly, and as 
soon as father got back from America, we 
said good-bye to all our dear friends in Dres- 
den and left early one morning for the 
quaint old city of Nuremberg. 



Chapter Six. 



IN NUREMBERG. 

NUREMBERG CASTLE AND THE APOSTLE CLOCK. 

FEEDING THE DOVES IN MUNICH. 

THROUGH THE BAVARIAN 

ALPS INTO VERONA. 

THERE v\rere many interesting things to 
see in this quaint old city in a very short 
time, and the night wt got there v^e went to 
bed very early to get a good rest and be 
ready for sight seeing the next day. 

The first thing we saw when we looked 
out of the windows was the old wall of stone 
built entirely around the city centuries ago. 
We could see plainly the thickness of it from 
our rooms in the hotel, and could see the 
little shelves by the small latticed openings, 
or peep-holes, where the guards used to sit 
to see if the enemy were in sight in times of 
war In times of peace, such as it was when 



Nuremberg and Munich 59 

we were there, the massive old gates of the 
city were left open and people could go and 
come as they pleased. 

The first morning we spent in and around 
the old castle. It was surrounded by a deep 
moat, which is a trench dug very deep and 
wide and containing several feet of water, 
so that no one from the outside could get 
close to the castle. There was a drawbridge 
that worked from the castle side of the moat, 
and they put that across only when they 
wished to allow someone to pass in or out. 

Before we went into the castle, though, 
we stopped to see the famous old well, sup- 
posed to be the deepest in the world. A 
woman who was there to tell visitors about 
it, said she would drop a pebble down and 
we should count the number of seconds be- 
fore the stone touched the water. We 
counted six very slowly before we heard the 



60 Nuremberg and Munich 

splash. Then she uncoiled hundreds of feet 
of cord, and with a lighted candle fastened 
to the end, she let that down into the well. 
We all leaned over the edge to watch and it 
seemed as though it would never reach the 
water. She told how many years and how 
many men it had taken to dig the well, but I 
can't remember that now, and mother's diary 
does not tell. 

We then went in to what is called the 
Five-cornered Tower, where hundreds of in- 
struments of torture used in olden times 
were to be seen. It is a scarey place and I 
did not like it very well. The worst torture 
of all must have been from the huge figure 
called the Jung Frau or "Iron Woman." This 
was just large enough to hold a man stand- 
ing inside, and the front opened and the pris- 
oner was thrust inside, which was filled with 
sharp iron spikes, and then the doors were 



Nuremberg and Munich 61 

closed and the torture began. Brother and 
I have a small model of the terrible thing. 
It is the principal souvenir of Niiremberg, 
sold in all the shops. When we saw what 
dreadful things there were in the tower, 
mother said we had better get out into God's 
fresh air and sunshine and buy some of the 
delicious lebkuchen to eat, and forget the 
terrible things that happened those hundreds 
of years ago. 

I cannot remember very much about the 
rest of the castle, but I remember the won- 
derful apostle clock in the tower of one of 
the churches in the town — the Frauen Kirche. 
You might think it was just a plain, ordi- 
nary clock such as you see in lots of steeples 
if you didn't happen to be there at the right 
time. 

Twelve o'clock noon is the right time and 
wonderful things happen then. Beautiful 



62 Nuremberg and Munich 

life-like figures of the twelve apostles come 
out one by one as the clock strikes twelve, 
and they walk on a ledge around the clock 
several times, and finally the apostle Peter 
comes out alone, and then we hear the cock 
crow, and Peter disappears. It is very inter- 
esting and every day at twelve there are 
many people gathered in front of the old 
Frauen Kirche, waiting to see the march of 
the apostles. 

The toy stores of Niiremberg are like 
nothing else one can possibly imagine, un- 
less one can picture a visit to Santa Claus 
Land, where thousands and thousands of 
toys must be stacked up ready to be distrib- 
uted at the proper time. There are more 
toys manufactured in Nuremberg than any 
other city in the world, and I am sure they 
must have samples of every toy that was 
ever made, in one big shop we visited. Ed- 



Nuremberg and Mtmich 63 

win and I would like to have spent days and 
days in this old city, but we were having 
much cold, stormy weather now, and father 
thought it best to travel slowly along on our 
wa}^ to Italy, as there were many places we 
were to visit before we finally reached Flor- 
ence. 

It is only a three hours' ride, mother's 
diary says, from Nuremberg to Munich, and 
we reached there in a blinding snow storm 
on the very last day of January. The hotel 
was very comfortable and we were glad it 
was pleasant, because we had to stay inside 
for two days on account of the storm. We 
wrote letters, and read, and played, and drew 
pictures, and finally on the third day it 
stopped snowing and we could go out and 
see the sights. 

Father and mother had been here before, 
so they knew what Edwin and I would enjoy 



64 Nuremberg and Munich 

the most, and one of the first things we did 
was to go to the Odean Platz, to see the 
changing of the guards and to hear the 
music and feed the pigeons. These do not 
sound as though they belonged in the same 
sentence, but they do, as they all happen in 
the same place. Hundreds of pigeons flew 
around us for the corn we had brought to 
feed them, and perched on our arms, and 
hands, and shoulders, and even on our heads. 
Mother took some pictures of us and said it 
reminded her of St. Mark's Square (Piazzo 
San Marco) in Venice, where the pigeons 
gather around the visitors in the same way. 
Also, she says, there is a mosque in Constan- 
tinople called the Pigeon Mosque (Mosque 
Bayazid) where, in the large open patio, or 
court, are hundreds and hundreds of the 
pretty birds, just as tame as the San Marco 
doves in Venice, and knowing they will be 



Nuremberg and Munich 65 

fed by the visitors who go there daily. But 
this story is not to tell of what mother has 
seen — only what I have seen, so I must leave 
out things about Venice and Constantinople. 
One day we visited the picture galleries, 
the one called the New Gallery, because it is 
filled almost entirely with modern paintings. 
More bronzes are manufactured in Munich 
than in any place in the world and the man 
at one of the largest factories said that for 
years and years they had more orders for 
bronzes of Abraham Lincoln than any other 
figure. That pleased us, of course, as the 
man knew it would, and he showed us lots 
of orders ready to ship to the United States, 
figures and busts of great Americans, but I 
cannot remember a single one of them now, 
only Lincoln. Perhaps I remembered that 
better because his birthday happened while 
we were in Munich, but of course the man in 



66 Nuremberg and Munich 

the bronze factory didn't know about that. 
Father and mother had friends in Munich 
and they went to many places where Edwin 
and I did not go. I remember one was the 
Cafe Luitpold, where they went almost every 
afternoon for coffee, but it was very cold 
that week and many times we were happier 
in our rooms at the hotel. 

From Munich we went to Verona, riding 
all day from nine in the morning until 
eight at night, through very beautiful moun- 
tain scenery, the Bavarian Alps, and right 
across a corner of Austria (you can see by 
the map), into Italy. The one great point 
of interest in Verona is the Roman Amphi- 
theatre, which father said was in much bet- 
ter condition than the Coliseum in Rome, 
which we were to see in a few weeks. 

The one in Verona was built in the third 
century, and large enough to hold seventy 



Nuremberg and Munich 67 

thousand people, twenty thousand of them 
seated. Every row of seats is still unbroken, 
but in the corridors are blacksmith shops, 
wagon making, etc. It seemed very odd to 
see them, but it surely is much better to use 
the old arena for peaceful things like shoeing 
horses and mending wagons than the terri- 
ble scenes people went to see in the olden 
times. 

Most of the scenes of ''Romeo and Juliet'* 
were laid in Verona, and really happened 
there. The grave of Juliet is pointed out by 
the guides, and, of course, many people 
would not think of leaving Verona without 
visiting her resting place, though we did 
not go. 

There is a very large garrison just outside 
the city at the foot of the Alps, and all around 
on the neighboring hills we could see large 
forts. The city is so poor and shabby, it 



68 Nuremberg and Munich 

does not look as though it needed so many 
fortifications. Soldiers are everywhere about 
the streets and I think perhaps that keeping 
so many soldiers, and forts, and things is 
what makes the city so poor. 

Our next stop would have been Venice, 
on our way to Florence, but it was then the 
rainy season, and father decided there would 
be not only very little pleasure in going there 
then, but much discomfort. It was a long 
ride to reach Florence, but it was beautiful 
all the way, except when we were going 
through tunnels, of which there are nearly a 
hundred on this journey through the Apen- 
nine mountains, often called the Italian Alps. 

We would be riding along serenely, and 
admiring some beautiful bit of scenery when, 
without any warning, we would dart into 
one of these tunnels, and be plunged in utter 
blackness until we reached the end. Then 



Nuremberg and Munich 69 

we would blink, and look out of the car win- 
dows, and try to get used to the bright light 
of the sky, when presto! we would be whirled 
into another long tube, and darkness again. 

I like to take my globe and trace with my 
finger just where we went all that year 
abroad. I remember on this ride to Florence 
from Verona, we went through a city called 
''Bologna." Edwin and I thought that was 
a funny name for a city. 



Chapter Seven. 



FLORENCE. 

THE CITY OF FLOWERS. PONTE VECCHIO. 
THE CARNIVAL. 

WE were all glad when the long ride 
was ended, and we arrived at the sta- 
tion in Florence. Our trunks were loaded 
on a low, two-wheeled cart and pushed 
through the streets by a porter, and our suit- 
cases and bags, and Edwin's boxes of sol- 
diers, and my boxes of German dolls and 
toys from the Jahr-markt, and ourselves, 
were piled into two small open cabs, and 
away we flew over the cobble-stone pave- 
ments to the quiet family hotel on the Via 
Pallestro, which was to be our home during 
our stay in Florence. 

We caused quite a sensation as we rolled 
up to the entrance, v/ith all our grips and 
boxes and things, and father said all we 
really lacked was a bird-cage, and mother 



Florence 71 



said she thought our arrival was spectacular 
enough as it was. 

But we soon settled down comfortably, 
and it seemed to us all that the sun was a 
little brighter, the skies a little bluer, and 
the flowers a little gayer, than any sun or 
skies or flowers we had ever seen anywhere. 
I suppose it's of no use for a little girl to try 
to tell anything about that part, because 
anyone who has ever been in Italy knows all 
about the wonderful blue of the sky, and the 
flowers, and the sunshine, and those who 
have not been there would much rather read 
a grown-up's description of it, but I just had 
to tell how like fairyland it looked to me. 

We were only a little way from the River 
Arno, which divides the city something like 
the Elbe does in old Dresden, and a favorite 
promenade for everybody is the broad walk 
along the river's bank. 



72 Florence 



On the opposite side of the narrow street, 
facing the river, are dozens and dozens of 
shops, and fine hotels and private villas. 
Several bridges cross the Arno, but the 
most interesting one, and the one wt used 
the oftenest v^as the old Ponte Vecchio, 
which is shown so often in pictures of Flor- 
ence. 

There are ever so many little jewelry 
shops on both sides of this bridge all the way 
over, and we would forget we were walking 
across a river, we would be so interested in 
watching the shop-keepers trying to sell 
their wares, and customers bartering for 
some trinket, always offering less than the 
price asked, which everybody does in Italy, 
Auntie never liked to do this, and was always 
so afraid she might offend them by seeming 
to doubt that the first price asked was not 
just as low as they could possibly take, but 
she got over that a little, aft€r awhile. 



Florence 72> 



The name Florence in Italian is "Firenza," 
meaning "flowers," and I think those who 
live there want people to always remember 
that, because there are so many flowers 
everywhere. You cannot walk a block in 
any direction without seeing a flower mer- 
chant at the curb, sometimes an old man or 
woman, sometimes only a brown-eyed, cur- 
ley-haired child, with bare feet and ear-rings, 
almost always ear-rings. For a few pennies 
one could buy the loveliest boquets of violets 
and mignonette and roses, and even the chil- 
dren seem to know without any teaching, 
just how to arrange them to make them look 
the prettiest, and when the money was paid 
them they would say, ''Grasia, SignoreT or 
''Grazia, SignoraT so earnestly, as though 
we had done them a very grea-t favor. Father 
said the flowers would be more plentiful as 
we journeyed farther south, as it was then 



74 Florence 



only February, and still quite cool in Flor- 
ence, but I did not see how there could be 
many more anywhere, nor any more beau- 
tiful. 

It was interesting to compare the Italian 
money with the German, which we had been 
using for six months. The smallest coins of 
all are centessimi, and it takes five of them 
to equal one American cent. The twenty 
centime piece looks like our ''nickel," and is 
the value of four cents. The Italian lira 
looks like our ''quarter," but is worth twenty 
cents in our money and represents one hun- 
dred centissimi. 

The purest Italian is spoken in Florence 
of any city in Italy, and those who wish to 
learn to speak the language properly and 
free from dialect, like to go there for study. 
It is in the heart of Tuscany, in the valley 
surrounded by mountains, and if one were 



Florence 75 



looking at it from a balloon or an airship, 
high up above the city, it must have the ap- 
pearance of a great amphitheatre, like the 
one in Verona, only ever and ever so much 
larger, of course, with the mountains all 
around it to represent the seats. To get to 
any place out of Florence it is necessary to 
climb a hill, but the view from the top, no 
matter which hill, is always worth the climb. 
Brother and I used to roam around through 
the narrow old streets, not too far from the 
hotel, and look into windows and doorways 
of little shops and work-rooms, and one of our 
favorite places was a big room that looked 
like a barn, with wide doors that were al- 
ways open, and inside these were ever so 
many men wearing long smocks, working 
on pieces of marble statuary, which would 
afterward be shown in the expensive art 
shops along the Arno. 



76 Florence 



It was interesting to see them begin on a 
block of the beautiful white marble, first with 
big, bold strokes, and later with fine, careful 
ones, hew off a corner here, or chisel out a 
bit there, until it began to take shape, and 
seem almost like something alive, and per- 
haps, if a few days passed by between our 
visits to the workroom, we would see some- 
times a finished figure, and the sculptor 
would look up from his work and nod and 
smile at us, and say something in ItaUan 
which we could not understand. 

We learned that this beautiful white mar- 
ble that all the lovely pieces are made of, 
was the Carrara marble from the city of 
Carrara, Italy, and that no where else in the 
world can this particular kind be found. 

One time father took us into a place where 
the men were making beautiful furniture 
and carving all the pieces by hand. The 



Florence 77 



workmen are artists in their particular crafts, 
and are so patient as they work away for 
hours, over the beautiful carved arm of a 
chair, perhaps, or an elaborate claw-foot. So 
very much work is done by hand over there 
that is turned out in large quantities by ma- 
chinery in America. 

We enjoyed watching the silver and gold- 
smiths, also, and many times during our stay 
in Florence, we wended our way across the 
rickety old Ponte Vecchio to Coppini's, on 
the other side of the river, to watch the men 
at their delicate work and sometimes buy of 
their wares. This was the place where father 
bought a beautiful old hand-made gold neck- 
lace of sapphires and pearls for mother's 
birthday, and proudly presented it to her 
when he returned to the hotel. 

I remember she wore it that night at din- 
ner, but she discovered one little place in the 



78 Florence 



gold that was rough, and needed to be filed 
down, so the next morning right after break- 
fast, father put the necklace in his pocket, 
and started back across the bridge to the 
little shop to have it attended to. When he 
got there, alas ! the lovely trinket was not in 
his pocket, nor anywhere to be found, and 
that was the last we ever heard of it, though 
father advertised for a long time in the pa- 
pers, and offered a reward. 

We were all glad we happened to be in 
Florence the week of the Carnival, for then 
we had a chance to see the Florentines at 
play. The word ''carnival" means 'Tare- 
well to meat," and this is the great festival 
of Italy, and always held during the week 
before the beginning of Lent. All the days, 
except Sunday and Friday, are given up to 
merry-making and feasting, but the very last 
day is the gayest of all. On that day we 



Florence 79 



went out in an open carriage to see as much 
of the fun and frolic as possible. Old and 
young alike entered into the merry-making, 
and nearly everyone was en masque. 

The streets were filled with carriages, and 
the sidewalks were lined with people. The 
houses were decked with bright colored 
bunting and banners, and from the balconies 
were hung bright rugs and strips of carpet, 
and anything that would make color. Every 
balcony held a gay party who took part in 
the fun by throwing bags of confetti and 
long streamers of serpintini down on the 
people in carriages and on the sidewalks be- 
low. Flowers were everywhere, and people 
were good-naturedly pelting each other with 
the blossoms. 

Nearly everyone comes to Florence to see 
palaces and pictures, and we went often to 
the two greatest galleries, Pitti Palace and 



80 Florence 

Ufizzi, where we were sure to see not only 
paintings, but hundreds of tourists, who 
went along with their guide-books in their 
hands, reading earnestly, and some of them 
so busy with their catalogues that they did 
not see the pictures at all. When we would 
be too tired to go another step we just sat 
down and watched the people, and that was 
almost as interesting as the paintings them- 
selves. 

In the Ufizzi Gallery the chief treasure is 
the Venus de Medici, and I remember mother 
particularly wanted me to see that, but the 
miles and miles of paintings and other statu- 
ary I cannot remember much about. I do 
remember the long, covered passage a quar- 
ter of a mile long, which connects the Ufizzi 
Gallery with the Pitti Palace, on the other 
side of the Arno, because the grown-ups ex- 
plained to me that we were again walking 



Florence 81 



across the old Ponte Vecchio, and that all 
those funny little jewelry shops were on the 
bridge below us, as we wandered along look- 
ing at pictures. 

I think I must have been too small to re- 
member the things about places that you 
read in books, and yet when mother and I 
talk things over together, she will say, ''And 
do you remember such and such a place?" 
or ask me about some particular thing that 
happened. I can sometimes remember 
things even she has forgotten, but, of course, 
not the names of paintings or statuary or 
anything Hke that. Perhaps when I am 
older I can. 

About the best times of all in Florence 
were the days we went out to the Villa il Gio- 
iello (The Jewel), a wonderful old Italian 
home, where our cousins have lived for seven 
years. It was one of the oldest of the palaces, 



82 Florence 



and was built in 1450, long before Columbus 
had even thought of starting out to discover 
America. Perhaps he v^as not even born 
then. I must ask somebody when Columbus 
was born, though that really has nothing to 
do with telling about Florence. 

The first time we went to // Gioiello we 
went in a motor cab, because we did not 
know just how to get there, but nearly al- 
ways we walked, uphill all the way, as all 
the lovely places are around Florence — San 
Miniato, Vallombrosa, Fiesole — and it was 
beautiful every step of the way. 

The villa itself stands in a beautiful old 
olive grove, and surrounded by a high stone 
wall. It seemed like a glimpse of fairyland 
when the gates were swung back in answer 
to our ring, and we got the first view of the 
garden. Here were more flowers — thickets 
of roses, and trelHses, and rustic benches, 



Florence 83 



and olive and orange trees, and old Italian 
water jars, which had been in that garden 
for hundreds of years. 

A beautiful silver-haired lady in a trailing 
gown of lavendar satin, and a lace shawl 
around her shoulders, proved to be the 
Queen Fairy of this lovely old place and 
made the picture quite complete, mother 
said afterward. She was my grandfather's 
cousin, and a very dear and lovely hostess 
on that and other occasions. My first tea 
drinking began there, for mother could not 
be so hard-hearted as to forbid me, when all 
the others were having such a beautiful time 
around the open fire with their tea-cups. 

Speaking of the open fire makes me think 
of the funny little charcoal burners they 
have in Italy. They are called scaldini (but 
not because they are ever scalding hot) and 
are small earthen vessels, with a handle, and 



84 Florence 



a wire screen over the top. The burning 
charcoal is placed inside and smoulders away 
slowly, giving out very little heat, but many 
times all the heat there is in an ItaHan room. 
It must look odd to see a whole family try- 
ing to get warm by one of these. My cousin 
gave me a tiny one to take home, and I have 
it in my doll-house. 

The days and weeks flew past all too 
quickly, and one morning we held a council 
of war, and decided that since we must leave 
Florence sometime, it would be better to get 
to Rome ahead of the crowds that always go 
there for Easter Sunday, which was to be on 
the seventh of April that year. So we packed 
up again, and the caravan started for the 
station, with several dear Italian friends 
who had helped to make our stay in Flor- 
ence so delightful, to see us off. 



Chapter Eight. 



ROME. 

THE COLISEUM. BORGHESE GARDENS. 
ON THE SPANISH STEPS. 

IT is a beautiful ride all the way from 
Florence to Rome, and the six-hour jour- 
ney seemed even too short. The vineyards 
and w^heat fields are all mixed in together, 
and here and there are clumps of mulberry 
trees, and everyv^here the lovely scarlet 
poppy, v^hich grows wild in that south land. 
We passed great yoked oxen plodding along 
the road, and often would see what looked 
from a little distance exactly like an ani- 
mated hay-stack moving along the highway, 
but if we looked closely, and had a front 
view, a donkey's head could be discovered. 
A back view was nothing but hay. 

There were ever so many of the big two- 
wheeled wine carts, piled high with casks of 



86 Rome 



native wine, and a happy-go-lucky driver, 
usually asleep, somewhere on the pile. The 
one horse that pulled the cart might be hav- 
ing a very hard time of it, and look dejected 
and sorrowful, excepting for some gay and 
festive decorations that would be sure to be 
somewhere about his harness. 

That night at seven we reached Rome, 
and at first we all felt a little homesick, but 
the next day we began to get accustomed to 
the new order of things, and made up our 
minds we should soon be as happy there as 
we had been in dear old Florence. That was 
on Sunday, and it rained all day, so we 
rested, but on Monday morning the skies 
were clear and the sun was shining, and we 
started off for the Coliseum. 

It was just like we had imagined it to be 
from the pictures, and brother and I played 
"hide and seek" in and out of the old arena. 



Rome 87 



and through the walled cages where, in the 
olden times, the wild beasts had been kept 
until they were let loose into the arena for 
the battle with the early martyrs. It must 
have been terrible, but it was very hard to 
feel solemn about it then, so many hundreds 
of years after. Mother took several pictures 
of us, and bye and bye we were tired and 
went home. 

Only a little way from our hotel were the 
Borghese Gardens, a beautiful place to drive 
or walk or play, and we very often went 
there with our books, or our paper and pen- 
cils to sketch. The Borghese Villa and gal- 
lery is in one corner of the grounds, and 
some beautiful works of art are there for the 
public to see. 

For a long time brother and I could not 
spell ''Borghese" (it is pronounced as though 
it were spelled ''Borgezy"), so when we 



88 Rome 



wanted to go there, and there was no one 
around to ask if we might go, we would 
leave a little note pinned on mother^s cur- 
tain where she would be sure to see it, ''Have 
gone to the 'B' gardens," then would sign 
our names. In that way we all of us, grown- 
ups, too, got to calling it the ''B" gardens, 
and usually speak of them in that way even 
now. There is what is called a lateria 
in the park, where we could get the most 
delicious fresh milk at little tables out 
under the trees, and it was perfectly safe for 
us to roam around by ourselves for hours at 
a time. We often had our lessons out there, 
though there were so many interesting 
things happening all the time that it was not 
so easy to keep our minds on our books. 

Rome is so modern and prosperous look- 
ing compared with Florence, and the differ- 
ence is something Hke that between Berlin 



Rome 89 



and old Dresden in Germany. The principal 
street is called the Corso, and it is there one 
sees the best shops, the gayest crowds, the 
most stylish carriage and the narrowest side- 
walks. We spent many hours at the Forum 
on different days, and after the first time we 
did not take a guide because we had little 
books that told all about everything. 

At a little shop just outside the entrance 
to the Forum we bought some Roman lamps. 
They were supposed to be hundreds of years 
old, but father said they had undoubtedly 
been manufactured within the past two 
years and had been kept buried to give them 
the old look. He said there were not many 
real antiquities any more, excepting in mu- 
seums, and that the majority of those of- 
fered for sale in the quaint little ''antique" 
shops in Rome were freshly made. 

One of the places where we loved to go 
was the Piazza de Spagna, at the Spanish 



90 Rome 



steps. Father was right about the flowers, 
and it seemed as though there were just 
mountains of them in that square. It was 
there the artist's models gathered; sunning 
themselves on the steps and waiting to be 
selected for posing. They were not at all 
backward about offering their services to 
anyone who looked their way, and even we, 
who had only a camera, were begged to al- 
low them to pose for pictures, and the> 
looked so picturesque and would adopt such 
graceful attitudes, that it was not easy to 
resist them. 

But mother had little live models of hei 
own, and took a number of pictures of us. 
while the Httle Italian models stood watch- 
ing. Sometimes they would run along by 
my side and say, "Spik Englees, Signorina!" 
meaning they could speak English, but us- 
ually "Spik Englees" was about all they 
could say. 



Rome 91 



A few days before Easter Sunday, we 
found among our mail at the hotel, letters 
for each of us exactly alike, and addressed 
in a handwriting we had never seen before. 
Inside each envelope was a printed card 
bearing the words in English, "The Seven 
Postmen Wish You a Happy Easter!'* 
They were from the seven carriers who 
brought mail to the hotel, and we thought 
what a beautiful little compliment they had 
paid to us whom they had probably never 
seen, and mother said, ''Isn't it touching?" 
and father said, ''Yes, very," in a dry sort 
of way, and just then we noticed he was 
sorting out some one-franc pieces, which he 
later left with the concierge at the desk in an 
envelope addressed to the seven postmen. 

If everyone in the hotel returned the post- 
men's greetings as father did, there must 
have been a very happy Easter for them and 
their little bambinos. 



92 Rome 



In Italy babies or young children are called 
bambinos and sometimes mother called me 
that, and I liked it, but I was very proud 
when the flower girls and shop-keepers and 
the waiters at the hotel called me Signorina. 
It always made me feel so grown-up, like 
when the man on the balcony in Berlin asked 
me if he might smoke. 



Chapter Nine. 



HOLY WEEK IN ROME. 

IN ST. PETER'S. CATACOMBS OF SAN SEBASTIAN. 
A BIRTHDAY PARTY IN ROME. 

THERE were thousands of strangers in 
Rome at this time who had come for 
Palm and Easter Sundays, and the churches 
were filled with them for many days. But 
in St. Peter's, the most wonderful cathedral 
in the world, there might be hundreds and 
hundreds of people walking about or kneel- 
ing at prayer, and scarcely be noticed at all, 
it is so large. Even the many chapels open- 
ing out of the main body of the church are 
as large as most churches in themselves, 
and we walked and walked, it seemed for 
miles, to get from one end of the place to 
the other. 

Father called our attention to a painting 
of St. Luke high up on the ceiling. He holds 



94 Holy Week in Rome 

a pen in his hand and some scrolls of ancient 
manuscript. The ceiling is so far away from 
us that the figure of St. Luke looks to be the 
size of an ordinary man and the pen just like 
anyone would use, but in reality the pen in 
the painting measures seven feet long! 

There is a large statue of St. Peter in 
bronze near the center of the cathedral and 
it is on a pedestal just high enough for 
people to reach the foot of the statue with 
their lips. In fact, it has been kissed for so 
many hundreds of years, and by so many 
thousands of people, who have come to wor- 
ship, that the toe of the right foot has had 
to be replaced several times, and the one we 
saw was badly worn down. Little children 
were not tall enough to reach, but were held 
up in the arms of someone older, so that 
they, too, might reverently touch their lips 
to the foot of the saint. 



Holy Week in Rome 95 

On Palm Sunday we were there to see the 
blessing of the palms by the Pope, and the 
wonderful procession that was a part of the 
ceremony. Two days later we drove out the 
Appian Way to St. Paul's Cathedral, and 
stopped on the way at the tomb of St. Cecelia, 
and the Catacombs of San Sebastian. We 
went down a steep, cold stairway under the 
church and were all given wax tapers which 
made the only light there was in the fear- 
some place. A monk acted as our guide, and 
we followed him through the winding pas- 
sages, among the burial places of the early 
Christians. 

I did not like it down there under the 
ground, and mother noticed I was very 
quiet, and then she asked the monk to guide 
us back to the stairway, and she and I 
climbed up and out into the beautiful day- 
light and fresh air, and we went back to the 



96 Holy Week in Rome 

carriage, and sat there and ate cherries which 
a pretty Italian woman was selHng, and were 
comfortable and safe and happy, while the 
others explored those catacombs as long as 
they wished. Mother decided she would not 
take me to any more places like that, and on 
the way home, when we stopped at a Protest- 
ant cemetery, I waited in the carriage while 
the grown-ups went inside the gates, to see 
the grave of the poet Shelley. 

Easter Sunday, mother's diary says, was 
''a perfect day." Father took us all to St. 
Peter's again, where we heard the most 
wonderful singing, though we could not see 
the singers. Some of the voices were the 
clear, high soprano that rang through that 
vast place like the voice of some wonderful 
bird, and we thought we would like very 
much to see the women who could sing such 
beautiful clear notes. Afterward we were 



Holy Week in Rome 97 

told that no woman has ever sung in St. 
Peter's, and that the voices we heard were 
those of men sopranos who always sang on 
great occasions like that. 

At six o'clock that night we went to an- 
other church to hear the singing of the "Blue 
Nuns/' and their voices were sweet, and 
beautifully blended, but none so strong and 
powerful as those we had heard that morn- 
ing in the great cathedral. 

On my birthday, which happened while 
we were in Rome, we had quite a grand cele- 
bration. Some very dear friends from our 
own country were there at the same hotel, 
and all the grown-ups but mother went in 
the afternoon to the "Rag Fair," which is 
held every year and is something like the 
"Jahr-Markt" in Dresden. 

While they were gone, mother and I made 
place-cards for my birthday dinner that 



98 Holy Week in Rome 



night, for there were to be ten at the table, 
and it was to be like a real party excepting 
that brother and I were to be the only little 
folks. I had ever so many beautiful gifts 
during the day, and mother took a picture of 
me on the balcony off our rooms, reading one 
of my birthday books, to show just how I 
looked when I was seven years old. 

That night the ladies all wore their pretti- 
est gowns, and the gentlemen were in even- 
ing dress, and I had on my very best em- 
broidered frock, over pink, that mother had 
made in Florence, and we had a very festive 
table decked with flowers, and candles with 
pink shades, and there were place cards for 
each of us in rhyme, and we read those aloud, 
and had a very jolly time. 

I can't remember a single thing we had to 
eat, excepting the ice cream and cake, and 
oh, the cake — the most wonderful birthday 



Holy Week in Rome 99 

cake I have ever seen! It v^as very large 
and had on it rosebuds made of sugar, and 
green leaves, and then in beautiful pink let- 
ters on the v^hite frosting it said, ''Happy 
Days to Ruth/' 

It was almost too beautiful to cut, and I, 
almost too excited to cut it, but brother and 
I blew out the candles, all but the life one 
(for, of course, we left that burning as long 
as it would) and the waiter gave me a big, 
silver knife that was almost like a sword 
and I began dividing my lovely Roman 
birthday cake. 

That night I was allowed to remain up 
much later than usual and we sat visiting in 
the salon we called the ''Throne Room" be- 
cause it had so many beautiful high-backed, 
gold chairs that looked like thrones. 

After we had gone up to our rooms, I ran 
to the balcony to see how it looked out of 



100 Holy Week in Rome 

doors so late at night, and heard the strains 
of a mandolin and guitar. There were two 
men, and a little girl about my age (who 
should have been in bed two hours before). 
Both men were playing, one was singing, 
and the little girl was picking up coins 
that were thrown from windows and bal- 
conies. 

They sang "Santa Lucia," which we had 
learned in Florence, and ''O Sole Mia," 
which we all loved, and it seemed as though 
they stood down there on the pavement be- 
low us, singing and playing so sweetly, just 
because it was my birthday and this was all 
a part of the celebration. So I went to bed 
quite happy that night and with sweet mem- 
ories of my birthday in Rome which would 
never leave me. 

We were in Rome six weeks, but did not 
grow as fond of it as we had of dear old 



Holy Week in Rome 101 

Florence, with its narrow streets and its 
dingy old shops. However, we went away 
hoping we would be there again some day 
and were so sorry we had forgotten to toss 
a coin in the Fountain of Trevi and drink of 
the water, for the saying is that whoever 
does this just before leaving will surely re- 
turn to Rome some time. We all hope that 
the charm does not work both ways, and 
that those who do not visit the fountain 
and drink of the water will never visit Rome 
again. 



Chapter Ten. 



NAPLES AND CAPRI. 

A TRIP TO POMPEII. THE BEAUTIFUL ISLE OF CAPRI. 

IT was now the last of April, and our next 
journey was to Naples {La bella Napoli, 
the Italians lovingly call it) on the Bay. This 
was different from any city we had seen in 
all our travels. Father said one of the 
principal places of interest there was the 
National Museum, where nearly all of the 
relics of Pompeii were preserved, but he 
thought it would be more interesting for us 
to see Pompeii first and the relics after- 
wards. Accordingly, we made the trip to 
Pompeii by train a few days after our ar- 
rival, and I am sure I was too small to ap- 
preciate it at all, so all the money father 
spent on me that day was just wasted. To 



Naples and Capri 103 

me it looked like the Roman Forum, only 
much larger, and it was hard to imagine 
that old Vesuvius, looking so peaceful over 
there in the distance, with a soft, hazy cloud 
over the summit, could work such destruc- 
tion. All the real treasures of Pompeii are 
in the Naples Museum, and we visited there 
a few days later. 

Father took us to the Aquarium in Naples, 
but I did not think it was any more inter- 
esting than the one in our own home city, 
excepting that there was a huge octopus in 
a tank, with a hundred arms and legs reach- 
ing out in all directions, and he looked so 
fierce we were glad enough that he could 
not get at us. There was a pleasant park 
near our hotel and often brother and I went 
over there and had rides in the little wagons 
drawn by goat teams, at twenty centimes a 
ride. 



104 Naples and Capri 

There were more beggars in Naples than 
any city we had seen; singing beggars and 
whining beggars, and crippled beggars and 
blind beggars, and just plain beggars. They 
were everywhere. They would dive from the 
dock or small boats for coins tossed in the 
water; they would hobble along by our car- 
riage if we were driving, and beg for cop- 
pers; they swarmed on the steps of the 
churches, and made Hfe a burden for anyone 
passing by. 

One morning we got up very early, and 
leaving our heaviest trunks at the hotel, we 
set out for the Isle of Capri. From the Santa 
Lucia dock, only a short distance from our 
hotel, we were taken in small rowboats to 
the little wobbly steamer that makes the 
trip once a day to the Island. It was very 
crowded and very uncomfortable, but the 
scenery is beautiful as we steamed out 



Naples and Capri 105 

across the Bay of Naples in the blue waters 
of the Mediterranean, and we could almost 
(but not quite) forget the discomfort and 
smells of that little steamer. 

It is only a short distance, but the Gulf 
of Naples can be very rough, and the ride 
seem very long. We were transferred to 
small rowboats again on reaching the Isle 
of Capri, and the first sounds to greet our 
ears, after the calls of the Italian boatmen 
had died down a little, were the cries of the 
swarms of coral vendors on the quay — men, 
women and children. Father said that little, 
if any, of it was real coral, and that it was 
made by the ton in Germany, and fashioned 
into beads, so we did not buy any of it there. 

But we were not at Capri yet, even 
though we had landed on the island, and to 
reach the town itself we had to take a very 
steep cable railway where the engine pushes 
instead of pulls. All the way up that 



106 Naples and Capri 

mountain we went into raptures over the 
masses of flowers to be seen everywhere, 
and when we reached the top and walked the 
short distance to the hotel, it seemed like 
one great garden all around us. 

When we looked out across the Mediter- 
ranean from the balcony of our rooms it 
scarcely seemed real, there was so much 
beauty everywhere. We must have been 
there at exactly the right time of year to 
see the island at its best, because it surely 
could not have been more beautiful nor the 
weather more perfect. 

The second day after our arrival at Capri 
we went back down the odd little cog-wheel 
railway to the boat landing place, where we 
engaged small boats for the trip to the Blue 
Grotto. Most of those Italian boatmen are 
able to speak a little EngHsh, and the ar- 
rangements always have to be made before 



Naples and Capri 107 

the trip begins, or there is quite likely to be 
trouble afterwards. So our bargains were 
made and we started out, and keeping close 
to the rocky shore we soon reached the rock 
of the Blue Grotto. 

At first we could see nothing but rock 
rising up out of the water, then the boatman 
very carefully steered toward a tiny arch, 
which looked to us about large enough for 
a fair sized cat to crawl through, but when 
we got close to it, by all of us almost lying 
flat in the boat, the narrow little craft could 
just slip through the opening. 

We were then in the famous Blue Grotto, 
and it was no longer necessary to remain in 
the bottom of the boat, for there was plenty 
of room over our heads to sit up straight or 
even stand, if we wished, and the ceilings 
and walls of that wonderful cave are of that 
brilliant blue which gives the grotto its name. 



108 Naples and Capri 

The water looks like silver, and when we 
put our hands in they seemed to turn to sil- 
ver. A young Italian boy in bathing 
trunks was diving from a ledge in the rock, 
and he, too, turned to silver in that magic 
water. It reminded us children of the story 
of King Midas, where everything he touched 
turned to gold. 

We could not linger too long in that fairy- 
like place, for if the wind changes suddenly 
the water rises and the tiny opening at the 
mouth of the cave is filled up, and there is 
no way to escape until the wind veers about 
and the sea goes down. The boatman 
showed us some hard biscuits he had stored 
away in the boat to prove to us that we 
would not die of hunger if we were caught 
by the rising water, and pointed to the fresh 
cold water trickling through the crevices of 
the ceiling from the rocks above, to show 



Naples and Capri 109 

that neither would we die of thirst, but we 
decided we had enjoyed it long enough, and 
again we drifted out through that Httle 
doorway into the big world outside. 

On another day we walked to the old 
ruins of Tiberius, climbing a little higher as 
we went along, until finally we reached the 
top. The view from here is the most won- 
derful we had had anywhere, and we all 
agreed it was worth the climb. By the 
time we reached home again our arms were 
so filled with wild flowers, which we had 
gathered on the way, that we had a hard 
time finding places to put them all. 

We learned that the native Islanders 
do not often patronize the cog-wheel rail- 
way, to go up and down the mountain side. 
There are long flights of steps cut in the 
rock, and so steep it makes one dizzy to look 
down them, and up and down there the care- 



110 Naples and Capri 

free natives, with bare feet and happy faces, 
run many times a day. The flowers grow in 
such profusion that they even poke their 
bright heads through the crevices of the 
rocks, and in the picture called ''On the Steps 
at Capri," one may see the blossoms spring- 
ing gaily from what looks like solid rock, as 
if to vie in beauty with the lovely faces of the 
children. Mother often wondered if the 
children knew what pretty faces they had, or 
what beautiful pictures they made, as they 
posed unconsciously in those picturesque sur- 
roundings. Truly, they are like lovely wild 
flowers themselves, and are in the proper 
setting on that sunny isle. 

There are ever so many beautiful walks 
and drives, and every day we could go in a 
different direction, and see something new. 
There was no thought of lessons or study 
here, and mother seemed quite willing that 



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OX THE STEPS AT CAPRT. 



Naples and Capri 111 

we should roam around like little gypsies, 
brother and I, filHng our lungs with fresh 
air, and our hearts and minds with love of the 
beautiful in Nature. 

Father and mother both said they believed 
there w^as some magic potion, either in the 
water we drank or in the air we breathed 
that just made people happy and lazy and 
sort of ''don't care" and father said once, 
when he was idling on the terrace of the 
hotel, and looking off across the blue of the 
Mediterranean, that he just could not bring 
to his mind a picture of the big, bustling 
work-a-day world where he belonged. Ed- 
win and I thought it would be very nice to 
just stay right there and live happily ever 
after, like in fairy stories, and we suggested 
it to father, but he smiled and shook his head, 
and said we must soon begin to think of sail- 
ing for America, and to sail for America we 



112 Naples and Capri 

must get back to Naples. So one day, almost 
with tears in our eyes, we said Addio to that 
wonderful garden spot, and boarded the same 
little tippy steamer for the main land. 

If this were a really, truly diary, I suppose 
I would have to tell the truth, dreadful as it 
might be, about that three-hour journey back 
to Naples. Mother says there is no need of 
going into details, so I will only say that it 
was very, very rough, and everyone was very 
quiet, and I remember they looked like peo- 
ple do when a flash-light picture is being 
taken; when that greenish light flares up. 
We almost forgot how we had loved Capri, — 
and we met a dear little Irish boy, named 
Pat, on the steamer, — and he felt that way 
too. 

We were all glad when we came into the 
harbor and found the little boats waiting to 
take us in to the dock. In the excitement 



Naples and Capri 113 

mother dropped her hand-bag in the water, 
and never saw it again, but I suppose the 
little Italian boys, who dive for coins, found 
it afterward, unless the water was too deep 
there. The most important things in it were 
the keys to our trunks, and father had to 
go out that night, after we reached the hotel, 
and hunt up some Italian locksmiths to get 
the trunks open. It was ever so much 
trouble, and mother was very sorry she had 
been so careless as to drop her bag over- 
board, but father did not say a word, even 
when the lock on one trunk had to be broken 
open for the customs. I suppose he remem- 
bered the gold necklace in Florence and 
knew how easy it is to lose things. 

Excepting for frequent visits of the two 
locksmiths, our stay in Naples after our re- 
turn was quite uneventful. We visited some 
shops and bought some tortoise shell things 



114 



Naples and Capri 



and a little coral, but we did not try to do 
any more sight seeing, excepting what we 
could do without any effort. 

Finally came the day of sailing, and we 
discovered that by this time we were think- 
ing and talking very often about our home, 
and our school, and our teachers and play- 
mates, and that the thought of going home, 
after a year's absence, made us all very 
happy. 

So we went aboard the ship that was to 
carry us back to the dear home land, in high 
spirits, and before very long we were having 
our last view of La hella Napoli and the Old 
World. 




Finis. 



